Spanish authorities ejected the most cohesive Moriscos first to fragment resistance

Evidence

These were the Moriscos who would have been best able to cause trouble for the Spanish authorities. Many of them were still speakers of Arabic, and they often lived in large Morisco communities in remote rural areas: in such circumstances their sense of group solidarity was strong. It was for this reason that they had been singled out to be dealt with first. Once they had gone, it became much easier to deal with the rest piecemeal. In a sense the die was cast by December 1609. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1461

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader ‘divide and conquer piecemeal’ logic familiar from colonial administration and counterinsurgency literature.